by Linda Cajio
Inside the ballroom, a string orchestra played energetic music, and voices and laughter swelled above the violins. He caught up with Catherine.
“Now, Catherine—” he began.
She interrupted. “Miles, I don’t want to hear it, okay?”
“And I don’t want men seeing you, wanting you …” Why couldn’t she see the point he was making? “That dress is … Oh, hell, you look fabulous and I hate it.”
Her mouth gaped open in astonishment. He felt stupid, like a young teenager with his first girl.
“Hi, are we having fun yet?” Catherine’s aunt Sylvia asked, coming up at precisely the wrong moment.
Miles forced himself to smile at her. “We’re jumping with joy. Everybody looks jovial, though.”
“So far,” Sylvia said, pleased. “The media is eating and drinking up everything in sight. I hope full stomachs put them in a contented mood.”
“It looks more like they’re vultures circling the carcass,” Catherine said wryly.
“Byrne will make it that way,” Miles said absent-mindedly, noticing two men staring at Catherine. He glared at them until they looked away.
“Byrne is a walking disaster,” Sylvia said, looking worried.
It’s showtime, Miles thought.
“Well,” he began expansively, doing another Ronald Reagan imitation. “I hope all this comes off the way it should. The bank consortium is not pleased with the way Byrne has handled the corporation’s public image. They want changes.”
Sylvia’s frown of worry deepened. “We’ve got some big loans with them right now, too.”
Miles smiled. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Catherine’s lips thin into a grim line. She might not like it, but it had to be done. “Yes,” he answered Sylvia. “If this keeps up, they are not going to be happy … or cooperative.”
“Excuse me,” Catherine said. “I see some people I should talk to.”
Miles smothered a grimace when she walked away. He had a feeling she would be doing that the entire evening. It was more of an advantage, though, to talk to Sylvia alone.
“And if it does keep up, Miles?” Sylvia asked.
She reminded him of Catherine in some ways, he mused. She was as straightforward. “They’re going to ask for some management changes. Some board changes, to be honest. And if you can’t make the balloon payment coming up, they won’t have to ask. They’ll be the ones doing it.”
The older woman swallowed. “Will they negotiate an extension?”
“I won’t recommend that to them,” he said flatly. “Not with the nonsense Byrne is pulling. Byrne is not his father. The change Wagner Oil needs is at the top.”
Sylvia took a deep breath. “I know.”
Miles looked toward Catherine. “Catherine is young … but she makes a lot of sense.”
“I know.” Sylvia smiled.
Miles smiled back. His message was received.
“Wagner Oil is not responding completely to these accusations from the Earth Angel. By the way, that’s a gorgeous gown.”
Catherine smiled at Mariana Tolliver. Channel Five’s beautiful investigative reporter was on the attack tonight. “We are repairing the leaks and cleaning up those drums, Mariana. And we’re correcting all our procedures to ensure such problems never happen again. The dress is a Sidney Marshall.”
Catherine hid a smile, remembering Mile’s reaction to the dress. She half felt she’d picked it just to provoke his response. And she was half pleased that he had acted a bit possessive.
“I knew it,” Mariana said, grinning. “She’s a wonderful designer. I kill for her stuff. How do you explain how those ‘problems’ happened in the first place?”
“You’ve got a Mike Wallace—Coco Chanel technique,” Catherine said, chuckling. “You’ve had the company’s official statement concerning the problems. As an officer of the corporation, I stand by it.”
“And I so liked your dress.” The woman sighed. “Come on, Catherine, don’t you evade too.”
“How about if I take you on a plant tour?” Catherine suggested. The more open she was, the more the reporter would assume there was no nasty hidden story to be had. And at least it took her mind off Miles, Catherine thought. She had been evading him for the past hour, only to realize he was with one of her relatives after another, “doing business.” It still hurt.
“Can I poke anywhere I want?” Mariana asked.
“As long as it’s not an EPA restricted zone,” Catherine answered. “We’ve been fined enough.”
Mariana laughed. “I suppose I can agree to that.”
“I’m eternally grateful.”
Mariana took a bite of her crab pastry. “You people are going all out in this congenial bribe.”
“And you people are certainly eating it up,” Catherine replied with an easy laugh.
She suddenly felt a presence close behind her. She didn’t have to see the sudden interest in Mariana’s gaze to know who it was. An instant internal matching was going on inside her body, and there was only one man she matched so instantly with. Miles.
“Mr. Kitteridge,” Mariana said, her smile sickeningly sweet. “Wagner Oil has outdone itself tonight. I’ve been talking with Catherine here about what the company is doing to improve its image.”
“Catherine is certainly the one to answer that,” Miles said smoothly. “She is an expert on environmental safety procedures, and she’s been instrumental in the changes you’ve been witnessing tonight.”
Catherine nearly choked. He hit a little too close to home with that one.
Mariana asked the same questions of Miles that she had of Catherine. She glanced at him as he answered, and the questions that had been bothering her lately resurfaced. Was she punishing him for before? She didn’t think so. Had he changed? He fed her cold remedies galore, apologized, even got arrested for her. He asked her to come back. At the same time, he was the moving force behind a brewing board fight to put her into the chairmanship of Wagner Oil. And not once had he said he loved her.
“… and she’s taking me on a tour of the refinery. No doors barred.”
The words brought Catherine’s attention back to the conversation, and she held her breath, waiting for Miles’s answer. He wouldn’t like this, she was sure.
“Great,” he said, without even a blink. “As a matter of fact, Wagner will be getting into the environmental cleanup business. The company intends to lead the way in this field. Could I steal Catherine away from you?”
“But … but …” Mariana sputtered.
Catherine found herself dragged away by Miles’s firm grip on her arm before the woman could protest. She couldn’t get a protest in anywhere, either—not without giving Mariana something to investigate. The wild delight she felt at his hand on her bare flesh only added to her confusion.
“Since when did we get into the cleanup business?” she asked.
“Since I found out how lucrative it’s becoming,” he replied. “It’ll be one of the first things you institute when you’re chairperson.”
She narrowed her eyes. It wasn’t his company, but clearly he thought it was going to be. “What else will I be instituting?”
He grinned. “Whatever will make money. Responsibly, of course.”
She didn’t like the sound of this. “Where are we going?”
“I want to talk to you alone.” He grimaced. “And I’m damn sick and tired of the men here ogling you. Can you stuff a napkin in there or something?”
She looked heavenward. “No.”
“I was afraid you’d say that.” He maneuvered them into a quiet corner. As he gazed down at her, her breath caught. Suddenly she wished she did have that napkin. She braced herself for him to touch her, but all he said was, “I’ve talked to the other board members, and they’re all disturbed by Byrne.”
“And you gave them the consortium pressure, I’m sure,” she said, her conflicting emotions hardening her voice.
“You’re being prickly again.” He smi
led. “We’ve got to use all the tools we can. I want you to talk to them about some of those safety procedures you mentioned before—”
She interrupted. “I’m going to talk to them about saving the Utah land.”
“The Utah land? Oh. From the codicil. I forgot. They may just be ripe for that, especially if you point out how it will be a show of our good environmental faith.”
He was amazing, she thought. And very full of plans on her behalf. What had been bothering her in this board fight beyond the family ties became crystal clear. She was going to be a puppet chairperson, with Miles running the works behind the scenes.
“Catherine,” he said seriously, abruptly changing the subject, “being apart isn’t solving anything. Come home with me tonight. We need to talk … about us.”
His words rang harshly in her head. Of course, she realized suddenly. He had never asked her to stay or to come back until after he had thought up this plan for a Wagner board shake-up. After. She was being used.
The room squeezed in on her, tilting and fading to near black.
“Catherine?” His voice came from far away.
He touched her arm. It was like a slap of icy water. She wouldn’t let the pain show, she thought. Two could play his game.
“Not tonight,” she said, her voice sounding remarkably normal. “It wouldn’t be good for us to be seen together too much. Everyone thinks we’re lovers now, but it’s better to confuse them. Keep them off balance. You work the crowd your way, and I’ll work them mine, okay?”
“But—”
She patted his cheek. “We’ll talk later. I have to arrange Mariana’s tour.”
With that, she walked away.
It was Earth Angel’s swan song.
Very carefully, Catherine set the jar of sludge on the buffet table. For the past half hour the table had been swamped by a steady stream of media people, until she’d thought she would go crazy with the waiting. She had nearly left, so distraught by Miles’s manipulations. Nearly. Finally the feeding frenzy had slowed, and she had casually wandered over.
The jar wasn’t big, just a quart-size mayonnaise one that had fit in her velvet bag. The sludge was straight from Wagner’s refinery drain, and the jar was clearly marked and signed by the lab that had tested it.
She had debated over whether or not to do this. It would be extremely risky, but the opportunity was too good to resist. A final mission, a most dramatic one—and one that would tweak a certain nose or two. She hadn’t been able to resist that, either.
She stood in front of the jar and glanced around to see if anyone was watching her. No one paid any attention.
Perfect.
She strolled away.
Miles heard the commotion by the buffet table before he saw it. People were looking and pointing and buzzing—and laughing in satisfied amusement.
“What’s going on?” the state senator Miles was talking to asked.
Miles shrugged, slightly annoyed to have his chat with the man interrupted. “I don’t know.”
The laughter rose. He and the senator wandered over. He couldn’t get close enough to see anything at first, then the crowd shifted enough for him to spy an innocent looking jar of brown mud.
“The Earth Angel!” somebody said.
“Let me through!” Byrne shouted. “Turn off those cameras! Let me through!”
Instead, the reporters crowded around him, all of them babbling questions. “Help!” Byrne squawked. “Get away, get away!”
Miles turned on his heel and strode across the vast ballroom. His aim was unerring. That damn dress was hard to miss.
So was Catherine’s completely innocent expression when he reached her.
“Welcome home, sweetheart,” he said, before she could say a word.
He took her by the arm and hauled her out of the reception.
Ten
“I’m not going to your house again.”
Catherine instantly wanted to take back the words at the look Miles gave her.
“You will,” he said tersely, pushing her past several guests leaving the reception and into the elevator. It was an express. He jabbed the button that closed the doors, saying to the others, “Sorry. It’s full.”
The people stared open-mouthed. The doors slid shut.
Catherine had never seen him so angry before. Maybe, she mused, she might have gone a little too far this time.
“Miles—”
“Catherine, don’t,” he said, his voice so cold it could have refrozen the arctic.
She swallowed hard. If she would ever know when to keep quiet rather than fight, this was definitely the moment.
The elevator ride was made in deadly silence. So was the wait for his Corvette to be brought around. Catherine shivered in the cool September air. She thought of her evening coat back in the cloakroom and decided it wasn’t worth mentioning.
Without a word, Miles shed his tuxedo jacket and dropped it around her shoulders like a sack of potatoes.
“We will go to my house and we will have this out,” he announced abruptly. “You broke the deal, Catherine. Again.”
All the defiance went out of her when she realized Miles was a thread away from losing his control. Smothering the urge to tell him why she had done what she’d done, she pulled the jacket tight around her shoulders. She felt cocooned in his body heat. The so-familiar scent of him enveloped her, and pain knifed through her at the thought of what she wanted and couldn’t have.
In the car, conversation was nearly nonexistent and tension was tantamount.
At one point, she did ask, “Do you think our disappearance might cause some talk?”
“I doubt it. You saw fit to take care of that,” he said coldly.
The car screeched to a halt at his front door. She had just touched the door handle when her car door was wrenched open. Miles had come around the car that fast.
She scooted past him when he opened the house door, then jumped and spun around when he slammed it shut behind them.
He looked about to explode.
“Now, Miles …” she began, backing away from him.
He stalked her. “Why? Just tell me why you pulled this stunt that could ruin everything.”
“Nobody saw me.”
“There were over two hundred people in that room!” he roared. “How could you not be seen?”
“I checked,” she said, glancing around for an escape route. None was available.
“You better hope to heaven you weren’t seen. Because if you were—”
“If I was, the phone would be ringing off the hook already for a statement from you.” She rushed on with her explanation. “Miles, it was my last time as the Earth Angel. Truly. I wasn’t going to do it at all. Honest. But this has been too important not to use such an event to make a point—”
“A point!” He gaped at her. “I have been working my tail off to get you a legitimate forum for your cause, and you sabotage me.”
“I wasn’t trying to sabotage you. I didn’t want the family to become complacent …” The look on his face shook her. She scrambled for a better explanation as anxiety mingled with anticipation. “I mean, I … It was …”
“You did it just to be obtuse.”
She wondered if she had. She had known he would figure out who did it. And she had known somewhere inside her exactly what he would do—bring her to his home and keep her under twenty-four-hour surveillance. The two of them alone.
He backed her against the wall, pressing so close, a sheet of paper couldn’t have been wedged between them. “Dammit, Catherine. If I say the car is black, you automatically say it’s white. If I ask you to do something or not do something, it’s because I care about your welfare. But you have defied me at every turn and treated me like I’m the muck from the bottom of a pond. I’ll tell you who the pond scum was: that philanthropic jerk you keep on a pedestal. He was using you for a meal ticket and you still can’t see it. You make me insane with jealousy and drive me crazy in general,
and I don’t know why the hell I put up with it except that I love you—”
Catherine gasped at the shocking words. There was no doubting they were unprepared, unrehearsed, and totally genuine. Genuine. Her wall of resistance crumbled away.
Miles stopped his tirade and stared dumbfounded at her. All of his anger dissolved as the truth of what he’d said rocked him to his roots.
“Do you mean it?” she asked.
“I guess so.” He smiled, then laughed. Suddenly, everything made so much sense. He must have been blind not to see it before. “Oh, hell, Catherine, it figures.”
He touched her cheek, the softness of her skin springing up a well of desire in him.
“You don’t sound very happy about it,” she whispered.
He grinned wryly. “I’m not sure I should be. Will you marry me?”
Her jaw dropped in complete astonishment. His grin widened.
She was silent for a long moment, then looked straight at him. “I already do.”
His whole world tilted at the wonderful words, then snapped back into place. He kissed her, and her mouth instantly surrendered to his. All of her seemed to surrender in his embrace. She had never felt so soft and gentle with him before.
Everything went out of his head except her revelation. He didn’t care how she had come to love him, it only mattered that she did. He wanted her so badly. All the lost days and nights needed to be erased in an intimate confirmation of their words.
He broke the kiss and lifted her in his arms. She was solid and real, and he turned and carried her up the stairs.
“What are you doing?” she asked, clinging deliciously to his shoulders.
“Rhett Butler imitations,” he answered, holding her tightly against him.
“Just don’t get a hernia.”
“It’s not in the script.”
She smiled. “You really know how to end a fight.”
He smiled in return. “This is just the break between rounds. I’m still furious with you, but we’ll argue later. First, we’ll learn to trust each other.”
“Can we?”
The question was hesitant, and he heard the desperation in her voice.
“We can,” he assured her. “We have a lifetime to do it in.”